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Grand Duchy of Crimea
Throughout its entire history, Crimea has been no stranger to conflict. The earliest settlers fought wars with pestilence, disease, and the very swamps themselves to eke out a living in the hostile environment called Sevastopol. Their descendants fought small-scale conflicts with their southern neighbors in Anatolia. The Boyars fought wars with their rivals throughout the peninsula. And the cycle continues today, when the Tsar wages total war with the Arabic and Catholic upstarts infringing upon his realms. Kievan Rus is the last "true" Russian Giant. Zvezdansa stagnates in the foetid waters of the Baltic. Derse remains leaderless and weak, causing the Caspian to flood in its death-throes. Muscovy had been dismantled and incorperated into Kievan Rus, a fate it shared with her southern compatriots in the Eastern Roman Empire. And lastly, the Crimeans' long-standing allies in Beldain are more concerned with their expansion and trade, leaving their Western Brothers to fend for themselves. But Kiev endures, as her Father before her. The fires of war serve only to temper the Russian fury that runs through her veins. The death of her compatriots only hardens her resolve. The stagnation of her siblings only drives her towards greater heights. Nothing can stand up to Kiev and her children, and woe befall anyone who angers the Russian Juggernaut. Early History Kievan Rus was not always known as it currently is. Before, the Grand Duchy of Crimea dominated Southeastern Europe. However, one cannot tell the tale of the Rus without first telling of the Crimean Duchy. The current Tsar of all Slavs, Mikhail "Rivet" Lerovichev, was the 6th and last King of the Crimea, and the head of House Sevastopol. His father, the Fifth Crimean Tsar, was the first to bring the Ukranian peoples to anything resembling unity - while still a "country" before, the Slavs did little more than infight before Lerovichev the Great reigned in control of the boyars and centralized the military. While the Fifth did little in the way of conquest, he made several astonishing feats of diplomacy that cemented the Crimean nation into the region's politics. The newer, but much larger, Dersic Empire had called religious men from all faiths to his court in order to find himself a religion. The Fifth, while weak, sent his representative of the Orthodox Faith: Peter Robasivel, the Grand Patriarch of Kiev. The Orthodox priest out-spoke the other two representatives, and secured Orthodoxy in the Dersic realms. The same happened in the Steppes of Beldain, where a Russian once again called all faiths to their court. The Fifth personally went to the Tsarina's palace on the grasslands, and personally conversed with the aging ruler. Orthodoxy had once again been secured through the Fifth's final acts. These actions, along with the addition of Muscovy to the international level, paved the way for Mikhail Lerovichev to expand his empire and become one of the founding members of the Eastern Coalition, otherwise known as The Sons of Rus. The Sons of Rus The Sons of Rus, while short lived, had a very large role in Crimean History. Muscovy was the first to put the thought through, gaining the support of Zvezdansa and Beldain almost immediately. Derse was soon to follow, and Crimea was the last to sign the accords. The first true conflict was between the Vikings and Zvezdansa. The Norse raiders harassed the Baltic Confederacy to the point of war, and Russian troops soon sallied into the Swedish territories. Sadly, the Crimeans were absent in the conflict, but the war proved the East's supremacy. The joint ranks of Zvezdansic and Muscovite troops utterly crushed the vikings, ending once and for all the dreaded plague that had swept the West for years before and shaming the backwards French and Dutch. However, this was not the last conflict in Crimean History - a much more bloody affair arose in the South, with the attack on Constantinople by Davirrian soldiers. The War of Arab Agression The first true war that the Crimean armies had faced was with the two-pronged invasion of the Eastern Roman Empire by their neighbors in Caliphate of Davir and the african nation of Negendra. Outraged by the cowardly act, the Crimean war machine was shoved into overdrive, simultaneously mobilizing and modernising to destroy the Arab invaders. The ranks of Crimean Troops swelled to unheard of levels, outstripping the next largest land army by leaps and bounds. The Bosphorous was the deciding factor of the war, with a joint Russian and Byzantine counterattack that destroyed the woefully unprepared Arab armies with minimal losses. The rest of the War was nothing more than a mop-up, and had little impact on the world. The single coutner-offensive by the Arabs proved disastrous, as the firearm-equiped Arabs shattered like glass on the joint Crimean-Byzantine defensive lines. The troops stationed proved their veterancy with a crushing victory despite the inadequacy of their equipment. A cease-fire was quickly signed, which gave land to the victorious Byzantines and humiliated the Arab agressors. Far from broken, the Arabs turned Westward to deal with the recent influx of Crusaders in Tunisia, and to this day continue to futilely throw their troops at the Catholic knights. The Eastern Campaign If the War of Arab Agression was a war, than the Eastern Campaign was a genocide. A small, easily-angered nation called "Goturk" invaded Derse while their Imperial Army was embroiled in the Danish homeland, hoping to score a quick victory and demand tribute. What they did not expect was the combined might of the Russians to swamp their laughably small army, and slaughter every last Goturk that dared show his head. A small footnote in history, but the beginning of the Russian decline. Isolation and the Great Russian Implosion Crimea had proven itself as a world contender, ready to face the challenges sent its way. But its neighbors were not as lucky - Muscovy was a living nightmare of incompitence and apathy; Derse lacked any form of leadership after the Tsar's death; Zvezdansa was constantly picking fights with its neighbors; and Beldain was too busy obsessing about horses to pay attention to the world at large. Crimea stood at the doorstep of history - and its once-faithful companions were nothing more than dead weight. The first signs of the immedate disaster was the gradual annexation of Derse by Beldain. The once-proud empire was but a shell of its former glory, a giant egg perched on a circus wire, and was the laughing stock of the world - it was a small mercy to end its suffering, but the Beldainian regime was little better than the lack of one. The next sign was the dissolution of Muscovy. The stagnation had been going on for decades, but Mikhail refused to see the failing nation as anything less than the glorious protecter that he marched with previously. The loss of the dear friend angered the King, and set his ultimate plan in motion - the Crimea would expand, no matter what others thought. The plans were drawn in the King's dark office, devoid of the previous envoys of his precious friends. Muscovy, Derse, Zvezdansa, and Beldain had abandoned him, and the world somehow seemed much darker. The Creation of Kievan Rus The King's expansion added large swaths of land to the Crimean Duchy, which was good for the Crimeans but bad for the Boyars. New nobility interspersed with the old, risen from the faceless ranks of the Crimean Army to play nobility with the newfound subjects. The Old Guard was angry, and threatened to oust the current King if changes were not implimented - changes benifiting themselves, of course. Changes happened soon, but not the ones the Boyars wished for. Nobility was stripped of their land, their riches were siezed, their servants re-purposed, and any Boyar who voiced dissent faced either a sham trial followed by an execution or a quiet dissapearance. Fear gripped the rich old men, and the King, his Family, and the people entered a new golden age free from the Boyar's tyrany. With the annexation of Muscovite land, King Lerovichev realized that the old system and country did not work. A new beginning was needed - the creation of a greater Russia free from the stagnant rule of Beldain and the childish whining of Zvezdansa. Mikhail read many books in his youth about his country's precursor, and decided to once again unleash Terror onto European soil. With the king in absolute power, the Crimean Army undefeatable, and the Crimean borders longer than they ever were before, Kievan Rus rose from the ashes of the East's decline. She is the child of the most feared powers in Europe, and she will not find them wanting. Category:Nation Category:Empire Builder 6